I had every intention of going for an eleven mile run today, I really did. I was going to feel the rhythm of my body and breathe and ruminate on the book un-knot the tangled bits and re-think the wobbly bits and meditate on my two main characters, and I would come back refreshed, re-energized, and re-committed to the project. And what’s more, I would be a new woman, a new writer, a new everything.
But then, it snowed.
Blizzard in St. Paul: April, 1923
Courtesy the Minnesota Historical Society
And granted, it didn’t snow as much as it did on those guys, it still is too much for me to bear right now. I want some spring weather, damnit. I deserve it. So I’m drinking tea instead, and meditating on my desperately-in-need-of-sweeping floor, and I’ll be a new woman all on my own. Because it is April 20, for god’s sake, and I am NOT RUNNING IN THE SNOW.
(She says)
(She grumbles)
(She stomps away)
(She puts on her running shoes anyway and heads out, cursing the skies)
Kelly Barnhill 
Could you live with yourself if you had not gone out for a run?
Oh, I could (and often do), but today it was needed.
I don’t know what I’ll do when I can’t run anymore (fie upon you, middle age! Fie, I say!). My writing process is so wrapped up in intense physical activity.
I thin you figure things out on how to be active. I was never a runner but I do like to go for a walk with the dog or work in my garden now that I have hit my late 40s.